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When Science Fiction Becomes Reality: Analysing Science Fiction's Influence on Innovations Past, Present, and Future - A look at the work of French novelist Jules Verne, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek media franchise and much more... 

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Jules Verne, 1828-1905, was a French novelist, poet and playwright. He wrote many books with scientific ideas and innovations which were way ahead of his time. In some cases he was even able to predict the future. Here are a few examples. In "From Earth to the Moon", Jules Verne describes a space gun (a really big canon), that with enough speed could launch men to the moon, which is a similar to the Saturn V rocket used by NASA to get man to the moon. "Five Weeks in a Balloon" tells the story of a 4,000 miles balloon trip over the continent of Africa. A trip of this sort would not have been possible until at least a century later. "Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" introduces the "Nautilus", which is a technologically advanced submarine, one of which would not have existed at the time. In "In the Year 2889", Jules Verne describes the "phonotelephote" which allowed "the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires". This is similar to the videoconferencing setup used to connect family in North and South Korea in 2005, or even today's FaceTime or video call on Skype and WhatsApp.

Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek media franchise has thrilled fans for over half a century and has shown that it too can predict the future! A very well known piece of technology in the Star Trek franchise is the PADD, which is similar to today's tablets such as the iPad, Kindle, Amazon Fire and more. Fans also saw Lieutenant Uhura use a wireless earpiece to communicate with people around the ship, which at the time people would have thought was revolutionary, but today Bluetooth earphones and headphones, like Apple's AirPods, are in use by many around the world. Star Trek also introduced the idea of touch screen monitors to interact with their operating system LCARS on the Enterprise. Touch screens are in use all arounds us today, whether you are using a tablet or your phone.

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